Cobb County Commission Chairman Tim Lee should be put on the Atlanta Braves payroll as head cheerleader. No one comes close to being so publicly vocal in supporting the team, the financial benefits the county will reap, and all the other wonderful things that have occurred, and will occur since construction began of the new stadium. I honestly think that most people, including me, look forward to completion of the stadium and the revenue and entertainment that it will bring to the county.

If only everything was so perfect. The Georgia Supreme Court has yet to rule on the legality of the revenue bonds that Cobb citizens will have to pay off over 30 years, and despite assurances from Mike Plant, Braves VP of business operations and his head cheerleader that the parking logistics will be resolved, the public has only heard about vague plans. I heard Plant speak at Marietta Kiwanis a few weeks ago, and in his talk he mentioned how irritated he gets when someone reminds him that the Cumberland Mall landlord has said that they will not allow Braves spectators to park there. Plant assured his audience that their parking plans to not encompass Cumberland Mall, which he said is not conveniently close to the stadium.

Perhaps Plant and Mr. Lee should coordinate their public statements a little more closely. Last week the commission chairman hosted a town hall meeting that he used to demonstrate why he is the unofficial head cheerleader for the Braves. In addition to talking about all the financial rewards Cobb is already getting before the April 2017 opening day, Mr. Lee addressed the parking issue promising that the Braves will have a solution by the first quarter of 2016.

Mr. Lee also said that plans include a circulator bus that would operate inside the Cumberland area to transport passengers to and from the stadium. What wasn’t reported, so I assume wasn’t addressed, was where the people taking the circulator will park. Cumberland Mall? Just asking. Mr. Lee’s comments may not have been coordinated with the Braves front office, but one should not be shocked. Curious people are asking why Mr. Lee was noticeably absent from the photo in the MDJ (that Governor Deal was in) of the announcement that Comcast is going to be the sole tenant with 1,000 employees in the nine story building adjacent to the stadium. By any measure that’s a big deal, and it’s hard to believe that the commission chairman had more important business than to be there for the announcement.

Cobb County is one of the most Republican counties in the entire country. Yet our Republican officials had no problem committing $397 million of taxpayer money to a private entity that is highly profitable, and which the owner, John Malone, is worth upwards of $8 billion. We are told over and over by Plant and Mr. Lee what a great deal the Braves relocation is, and I have no doubt about it. I just want to know why if it’s such a good deal private investors aren’t exclusively paying for it. Corporate welfare should be based on need just as any other welfare program.

One would think that the Braves would be happy with all the goodies the public has committed to them, but apparently not. Also occurring last week was a report in the MDJ that Plant is once again annoyed at critics of a state sales tax exemption for construction material that the Braves feel entitled to. This benefit is provided to businesses that will have a development with a significant regional impact. After all, Plant argues, “the long term economic benefits outweigh the short-term savings.” Plant also talked about the business risks the Braves are taking with not only the stadium, but the development they promise to build surrounding the stadium. Again, I ask, whatever happened to Republican Party principles that bespeak of risks and rewards?

I am confident that Cobb will be the beneficiary of the Braves relocation. I am also confident that the Braves will continue to prosper, that the move was a good business decision. But I await with thirsty ear how doctrinaire conservatives support the way this deal was done and the use of the public treasury for a prosperous private concern. I can’t wait for Mr. Lee to tout his conservative and business credentials when he runs for reelection in 2016. The good news for the Braves is that the fertilizer coming from his mouth can be used for free to nourish the lush green grass at the new stadium.

The chairman of the House Budget Committee, Congressman Tom Price (R-GA) has put forth his proposed 2016 budget. If Price can successfully execute this plan that among other things, balances the budget in ten years, I am a new found believer.

Price’s budget will increase defense spending, cut food stamps, convert Medicare into a voucher system, change Medicaid to a block grant system, and of course---eliminate Obamacare. According to the NYT, Price calls this, “A Balanced Budget for a Stronger America.” It should be obvious without me mentioning it that all of this will occur without a tax hike---but even better---there will be tax cuts(!)---largely for the “job creators.”

I’ve said many times in this space that I stand with anyone that believes America’s defense capability has to remain the best in the world. The argument lies in what it takes to be the best and the baddest. The fact that politicians in Washington get to overrule our career military experts in the Pentagon who know just a little more than our elected representatives, is what I see as the problem when it comes to waste. Keeping unnecessary bases open, obsolete weapons systems rolling, are nothing more than jobs programs. Heaven protect an honest politician who calls it like it is unless he’s not running for reelection. Price and other Republicans are silent about the increasing social costs of the defense budget. Do they plan to address this problem raised by the last three Defense secretaries?

Cutting the SNAP (formerly food stamps) program is low hanging fruit. Anyone getting government assistance hardly has political clout to object. But I wonder if Price and his acolytes will be able to resist the pressure that will surely come from the likes of Walmart and other food providers that depend on the revenue for a lot of their bottom line. Whoever said to follow the money understood that as a proven axiom.

No question that Medicare and Medicaid need some kind of overhaul. I wish I had the elixir. Interesting that Price continues to advocate his own program to replace Obamacare, but House Speaker John Boehner has refused to give it so much as a committee hearing. Price’s healthcare plan includes tax credits to purchase insurance, and a tax on plans that exceed $30,000 per annum. Tax credits sound an awful lot like the current subsidies, and the proposed tax is one that he and others condemned when Obama wanted to apply it to “Cadillac” plans.

Price’s budget boils down to whopping increases for defense spending and reducing government programs that help the poor and disabled. This will result in surpluses beginning in 2024. It’s fair to ask how he came to that conclusion, and the answer is simple. It’s called “dynamic scoring”, a relatively new Washington buzzword. It allows for subjective tinkering of information to go into a model to come up with a conclusion that the author likes. In this instance the tax cuts would generate so much money that would go back into the economy, and the new money would more than make up for the lost taxes. Sound familiar? It was once called trickle-down.

The Soviet Union spent themselves out of existence; the money went for the military, not the rest of the country’s needs. Any number of former empires bankrupted from being overextended militarily. If Price’s budget, or anything resembling it gets passed, I can’t wait to hear the howls from Republican voters when government spending dries up millions of small contracts. The ripple effect of the money not going into local economies will be catastrophic.

Consider that Obama did two things to really annoy Republicans. He passed a health insurance law, and he used an executive order to grant amnesty to a select group of illegal aliens. In the first instance the Republicans failed to come up with a health insurance plan of their own during the six years they had both Houses and the White House under Bush II. The House also failed to pass an immigration law then or when they again had a majority after 2010 despite the Senate having passed a bipartisan immigration bill.

Price’s budget bill is smoke and mirrors. It sounds good to anyone who doesn’t understand macroeconomics. Meanwhile, immigration reform, tax reform, and alternative healthcare reform go unaddressed. It will take magic to change this recipe for accomplishing nothing.

I will grant you that this budget is difficult since you have to get a certain number of Democrats on board to exclude the president's healthcare catastrophe, but I am surprised you are focused on defense spending as the biggest problem. Even the president recognizes that sequester has cut too deeply into the military in what is a time of global unrest. Though there is always waste--and how in all segments of government, most especially those social spending programs and pyramid-scheme entitlements that call for such destructive redistribution--the status quo is not addressing this much. I'm fine with getting rid of corporate welfare programs. But if you're not, then you have to ask yourself if the military industrial complex isn't a better Keynesian investment.

I always laugh when someone refers to an official as a “typical politician”, because the person wouldn’t get elected if he wasn’t one. Politicians have to appeal to a lot of different interests unless you are a Congressman Tom Price (R-GA) and have a very homogenous congressional district. I understand that, but America has had politicians who were also statesmen, men and women who did the right thing when the right thing was called for.

Former Senator and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has known since she was First Lady that she would make a run for the White House. Not unlike most presidential candidates, her ambition has consumed her, and her every move appears to be cold and calculating. The latest revelation is that when she was Secretary of State she bypassed the State Department’s email system and created her own server. From all that I have read her actions were not illegal at the time. President Obama changed the rules governing emails since then. However, not everything that is legal is moral or ethical.

Since Clinton has been silent about her motives, until a week after the NYT broke the story, it is fair to draw negative inferences from her conduct and let her refute them. I am satisfied that she did it to avoid any potentially embarrassing communications that would later be used against her during the 2016 campaign. At this point no one really knows if she violated national security, and we also don’t know what we don’t know. We only know two things from her own lips, both self-serving and unverifiable: that it was more “convenient” not to use the government email system, and that she has disclosed everything except private correspondence.

I have never been a Hilary fan and have hoped for years that someone with some real gravitas could challenge her. That hasn’t happened, and considering her potential Republican opponents, I don’t even like to think about who will lead our country in two years. But Clinton also did a disservice to the Democratic Party. This selfish escapade will not go away, and coupled with other recent revelations about her fundraising for the Clinton family’s charitable foundation, could cost Democrats the election.

There are good reasons for the government to preserve all communications generated by officials and employees relating to their jobs. While I don’t believe for a millisecond that Congressman Trey Gowdy (R-SC), who heads the most recent committee investigating Benghazi will find anything, Clinton just threw an intercepted pass to him. Gowdy can now prolong the investigation almost indefinitely claiming missing emails. Just what the country needs. Thanks, Hillary.

Freshman Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR) is off to a running start to prove that he is another self-aggrandizing politician. Cotton and forty-six other Republicans wrote a letter to Iran warning the leaders there that concerning any nuclear deal, “The next president could revoke such an executive agreement with the stroke of a pen and future Congresses could modify the terms of the agreement at any time.”

The Executive Branch makes foreign policy, although with congressional input. What possible reason could Cotton have for writing this letter other than to draw attention to himself? Whether future congresses can alter the terms of the agreement is debatable. But either side can always breach an agreement with the attendant consequences. So the letter merely states the obvious and pokes a finger in the eye of the president, undermines his ability to negotiate a deal with Iran, and otherwise accomplishes nothing worthwhile. Where do our foreign partners fit into an agreement that Cotton decides one day should be cancelled? The message the letter sends is that our word, as a country, is subject to the political climate at the time, and that no nation should rely on it. Several prominent Republican Senators refused to sign the letter, and I tip my hat to them.

Hillary Clinton and Tom Cotton represent today’s politicians at their worst. The first is of the baby-boomer generation, and the other a young upstart. Let’s hope that they aren’t “typical politicians”, that the typical politician still has the heart of a statesman when called for. But what I fear are the words of Benjamin Franklin who said that if you live on hope, you will die of starvation.

No sane person would argue that our country faces some serious foreign policy issues. The one du jour that is on people’s minds most right now concerns preventing Iran from getting the bomb. No argument from me that this is a legitimate concern. I wonder, though, why Americans don’t seem to worry as much about North Korea having the bomb, especially since they repeatedly threaten their neighbor South Korea and the United States. North Korea is a much more repressive state than Iran, a country that never had the western influences that Iran once had. Kim Jong Un has proven to be a lot more unstable as a dictator than the mullahs in Iran, and no telling what madness he is capable of unleashing on a whim.

Then there is Pakistan. I heard a retired diplomat speak several years ago at Kiwanis, and he said that Pakistan was the one country that keeps the president up at night. Abdul Kahn is the Pakistani scientist who developed the atomic bomb and then cooperated with North Korea to assist them with their program. There are reports that Kahn has also worked with Iranian scientists. Meanwhile, the Taliban and al Qaida remain a threat to the stability of the Pakistan government. Does anyone wonder what India might do, as another possessor of the bomb, if the Pakistan government fell and was taken over by Islamic extremists?

I am only scratching the surface in this limited space in mentioning some of the dynamics of U.S. foreign policy when it comes to countries that pose one threat or another to our interests. In addition to a lot of academic debate on what we should or shouldn’t do to protect American interests, there is highly classified intelligence that affects decision making at the highest levels of our government. This intelligence can influence any president in ways that the ordinary citizen can’t understand and that may seem counter-intuitive.

All of that said, we Americans have to begin to sort through the various presidential candidates and narrow down our choice to one over the next 18 months. Recent comments from two contenders don’t do much to make me feel good that either could be the leader of the free world. (This isn’t about my choice in 2016. It’s about what current candidates are saying, which should help all of us figure out who can provide us the most confidence in their ability to think and try to make the best decisions.)

Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) was one of the speakers at the CPAC (Conservative Political Action Committee) conference last week in Washington. Like all the speakers, he didn’t miss an opportunity to denounce Obama. It was a conservative gathering, so it was expected and I have no problem with it. But Rubio proved again that he’s a mile wide and an inch deep. We already know that he is in a minority of Americans that don’t support restoring relations with Cuba. Geez, I wonder why! Now comes his accusation that Obama has no military strategy to pursue ISIS because Obama doesn’t want to alienate Iran during the sensitive negotiations over limiting their nuclear program. Rubio is on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and Select Committee on Intelligence, and apparently didn’t know that Iran and U.S. interests are aligned in destroying ISIS. I suspect that Rubio doesn’t know which countries and terrorist groups are Sunni or Shiite based.

Governor Scott Walker (R-WI) got a chance to have his foreign policy mettle challenged last week by a group of deep pocket conservatives in Palm Beach holding tryouts for some of the Republican candidates. Unlike Rubio, Walker isn’t privy to intelligence briefings and doesn’t sit on committees that deal with foreign policy. But I presume that Walker can read even if it’s the WSJ and National Review, and books by conservative authors who know something about history and government.

One of the attendees in Palm Beach asked Walker what he was doing to prepare for the presidency concerning foreign affairs. Walker responded that the most significant foreign policy decision in his lifetime was Reagan’s 1981 decision to fire the striking aircraft controllers. I won’t disagree that this was a monumental decision for a lot of reasons, but the most significant foreign policy decision? Walker explained that it sent a message throughout the world that Reagan was decisive, and that the U.S. wasn’t to be “messed with.”

For the sake of our country, let’s hope that candidates from both parties have their feet put to the fire during the campaign. We can do better, or at least I hope we can. A lot depends on it.

We all probably have role models and people we look up to because of their accomplishments, obstacles they overcame to achieve success, or other reasons that inspire us to do better, to be better. I have any number ranging from Ulysses S. Grant and other military giants, to Lewis Brandeis and Robert Jackson, two giants of the Supreme Court. And I could list other names from other professions who left indelible marks on me, for better or for worse depending on who is judging.

My latest “hero” is Rudy Giuliani, the former Mayor of NYC, “America’s Mayor”, and once presidential candidate. Last week at a dinner in New York for Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, Giuliani was one of the attendees among the deep pocket participants who are hosting tryouts for who will get their largesse in the Republican primaries. Giuliani spoke briefly, and in his remarks he declared that Obama didn’t love America. The accusation has gone viral, and even a respectable number of Obama haters cringed at it.

It’s worth looking a little deeper into the accuser in this instance. One would think that Giuliani’s background qualifies him to pass judgment on the president. If so, you would be wrong. Giuliani was of draft age during Vietnam. He had student deferments right through law school, and upon graduation he lost his II-S status. For those old enough to remember, he was reclassified by the draft board to I-F, which meant he was immediately available for service. In 2008, when Giuliani ran for president, I couldn’t find anything about his military service or lack of it, so I wrote to the AJC’s Q&A section to see if there was an explanation. There was.

Giuliani’s first job out of law school was clerking for a federal judge in Manhattan. That position did not qualify for any exemptions or deferments, but Giuliani got the judge to write to the draft board that Giuliani’s clerkship was crucial to the functioning of the court. The draft board granted the waiver, probably the only one of its kind.

I am part of a group of Vietnam Veterans or Vietnam era veterans who don’t take lightly the conservative hypocrisy of supporting the war at the time but doing everything possible to avoid military service. The list is long of these phonies, and I remain baffled why so many are forgiving of them. Giuliani didn’t just luck out in not suiting up; he abused the system to gain an advantage. Sort of like a former vice-president who while supporting the Vietnam War said that he didn’t want to serve because he had “other priorities.”

Despite Giuliani’s assertion that Obama doesn’t love his country, the NYT and Washington Post, among other media, have published countless statements from the president where he has openly declared his great love for this country that has given him so much.

It is also worth noting that in his same speech Giuliani also hinted that Obama is a socialist because of his anti-colonialism. This latter accusation stems from prominent Christian conservative author Dinesh D’Souza, who wrote an article that can at best be characterized as pop psychology, saying that Obama’s political views derive from the father he never really knew, a Kenyan who was in fact anticolonial. I don’t think D’Souza’s opinions are worthy of much respect for reasons that include his guilty plea last year to felony campaign fraud and being ousted as president of a Christian college when it was revealed that he thought that the Seventh Commandment didn’t apply to him.

Giuliani has never had a problem dealing with his outsized ego. He was a successful mayor largely because NYC was the beneficiary of economic good times on his watch. The one thing that he didn’t lack for was money. It was there for the taking for all of his programs. Every mayor should be so lucky. His term ended in November 2001, but he tried to hang on past it despite an election that month claiming that it would be unwise to transition to a new mayor in the middle of a crisis. He lost that argument. While professing to be a hawk on terrorism, he had a contract for services with the government of Qatar, a country that had harbored 911 plotter Khalid Shaikh Mohammed.

I was brought up to believe that it was inappropriate for one person to judge another’s salvation, that only “the one true God” could do that. In light of no obvious acts of treason, burning flags, burning his draft card, verbally proclaiming that he hates America or some such words, I’m not sure why policy differences amount to not loving one’s country. Giuliani should have looked in a mirror first, decided whether he represents everything that is right about America (whatever that is) and then figured out if his smear of the president really was more representative of himself.

Giuliani is a paragon of a real American to some. In my opinion he is a slow learning lout. He didn’t figure out in 2008 that the American people handily rejected him, his personal lifestyle, and his politics.

The MDJ discourages bloggers from commenting to remarks from readers, but yours was civil and reasoned and deserves a reply. First, I have never suggested, hinted, or otherwise expressed any desire to curtail anyone's freedom to say or write what they want. In fact, I encourage the likes of Rudy Giuliani to say what's on their minds and let the public decide if they are buffoons. You never have and never will hear that I advocated any limitation on speech.

Giuliani's sin is that of hypocrisy. He made a conscious choice to take the low road to avoid military service while being a supporter of the Vietnam War, to be a tough talking war hawk today when he never had any skin in the game. I too have made a choice, and it is to dog people like him when they condemn others for what they perceive as lacking patriotism for our great country. Some feel the same way about Jane Fonda. Giuliani's public service as a politician does not mitigate his dishonorable draft avoidance. Others can disagree.

I don't see why anyone should question the president's patriotism. We could debate all day whether he doesn't love this country. I think he does; others think otherwise. What does it accomplish? We all have different understandings of what that word means in a democracy.

One of the campaign mantras of the Republicans in 2004 was, “He kept us safe”, referring to President Bush. It’s actually debatable whether he did or not. There is a lot of evidence that 9/11 was preventable, but that’s a discussion for another day. More immediate is the inability of the House and Senate to come to agreement on the budget for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

Bush created the DHS, not without a lot of controversy, concerning whether it was just another bureaucracy to add to the federal payroll and employment numbers. I don’t have an informed opinion about it one way or another, but from the outside it seems to be working. If nothing else, if federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies have improved communications among each other, that is a huge step in a unified fight to prevent terrorism on the home front.

On February 27th funding for DHS runs out unless both Houses pass a bill that the President will sign. The House version defunds monies that would go toward administering the temporary amnesty program that Obama granted by executive order to specified unlawful immigrants. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), has failed to rally enough votes to fund DHS if the defunding provision remains. Obama has made clear that he will veto any DHS bill that would in effect abrogate his executive order.

McConnell and House Speaker John Boehner have been unable to reconcile their differences. In fact, Boehner has made it clear that he did his job in passing a bill, and that it’s McConnell’s problem to uphold his end. Sounds like a good start for Republicans to show Americans how they will work together now that they are in the majority. Boehner knows that there is no chance that the Senate can muster enough votes to include the immigration provision, yet he refuses to try and water down the House bill. There are several Senate Republicans, John McCain included, that understand that Boehner’s bill is dead on arrival in the Senate.

Some will argue that it’s Obama’s fault for threatening a veto. What seems to be overlooked in that argument is that the Constitution provides for the President to issue a veto. Also forgotten is that Obama won reelection in 2012 by a convincing majority. We hear all the time that the voters spoke loud and clear in 2014 in electing sizeable majorities in both Houses, but let’s not be blind to what voters said two years earlier.

Obama has been forthright in stating that he will sign a clean bill to fund DHS. For Republicans to try and force their views on amnesty by threatening the safety of our country is irresponsible and unconscionable. I can only imagine how DHS will operate if it doesn’t get the money it needs to function. I’m sure that we can expect certain emergency services to continue, but at what level? For how long?

Our system of government is messy, but it is the one given to us more than 200 years ago, and despite the myriad of regional and party interests, it has served us well even if it gets bloody at times. But the number one common denominator that unites all Americans despite the foregoing differences is our national security. We have a military that we can be proud of, that does its job exceptionally well. I wonder if Boehner would be so tough if instead of DHS funding it was the Pentagon.

The amnesty issue is one that deserves discussion. Let the debate in both Houses and with the American people occur during the next two years. Tying it to shutting down DHS risks our safety. You can be sure that if there is a domestic attack while DHS operates at a reduced level, the finger pointing will begin immediately. And in 2016 the voters can decide whether the two Houses acted responsibly to score political points.

I often hear from conservative politicians and their supporters that we need to get back to our Constitution---or words to that effect. I’m never quite sure what that means, and when I ask for clarification the usual response is along the line of there being too many activist judges who don’t follow the law, who devise outcomes to comport with their personal agendas.

There is probably a grain of truth to this, and I would certainly agree that the current Supreme Court has been quite activist in cases involving campaign financing, religious freedom, and various social issues. That said, I have taken at least three oaths that I can recall (when I became a naval officer, lawyer, and FBI Special Agent) to support, preserve and defend the Constitution and the laws of this country. Supporting unpopular Supreme Court decisions and laws that I don’t agree with is part and parcel of that oath.

Alabama Supreme Court Justice Roy Moore has also taken the same oath at least as many times or more (cadet at West Point, when commissioned, lawyer, and twice a member of the Alabama Supreme Court). Our similar educational backgrounds and experiences taught us that in America we observe the rule of law, that the law is supreme over any one person. If we don’t like a law there are peaceful mechanisms in our system to change it. (Admittedly, it is getting harder for the common man to have a meaningful voice in government, which I’ve written about before, but that’s a topic for another day.)

When Moore was on the court the first time, he single-handedly decided to install a granite monument of the Ten Commandments in the rotunda of the state Supreme Court. After losing every legal battle to preserve the monument’s presence, Moore refused to remove it despite an order from a federal appellate court. Moore was forced to step down from the bench in 2003. In 2012, he was reelected.

Moore is very open about his professed Christian faith, that he is born-again, and that he fears the United States is becoming a godless country. He is also very open about his belief that marriage should be between one man and one woman. As far as his religious views are concerned, he has my support to propagate them all day and all night as an American. Moore goes further, though, in declaring that his first allegiance as a judge is to God and then the Constitution. He has professed that God’s law is supreme. Again, I won’t quarrel with that as long as he makes that claim as a private citizen. I could even support him if he held that belief but strictly observed his oath as a public official to support and defend the Constitution, and faithfully carry out his obligations and duties accordingly.

This week Justice Moore tried to contradict a court order issued by an Alabama federal judge. The judge ruled that that the state’s constitutional provision banning gay marriages violated the U.S. Constitution. Moore then directed all probate judges not to perform marriages of gay couples. Somewhere in Moore’s legal education, study of American history and U.S. government, he missed the blocs of instruction that taught where there is conflict between the Constitution and state law, the Constitution is supreme.

I support what I consider the long overdue right of gay people to marry. If the U.S. Supreme Court decides within the next few months that my ideas on not consonant with their interpretation of the Constitution and uphold Alabama’s and other states’ bans of gay marriages, I will reluctantly abide by that decision. And I will support those who seek to find ways to change those laws through the legal processes that are available under our legal system.

For those who think that Roy Moore’s faith should supersede his obligation to the Constitution and the oath that he took, perhaps they haven’t thought it through. There are a lot of beliefs that people of faith feel are revealed to them by their god, and they don’t all line up. That’s why there are any number of denominations in the Christian religion alone to reflect the various understandings of what they believe God has said or revealed to them.

Justice Moore is no hero. He doesn’t represent American values embodied in the Constitution. The man is essentially an anarchist clothed in the legitimacy of a judicial robe. He’s a dinosaur that still idolizes Jefferson Davis. Perhaps he missed his real calling, to be a clergyman, which would have been fine, but it appears that he didn’t interpret the message correctly when it was given to him.

Some weeks are just more interesting than others. New faces in Washington can unintentionally add to our amusement when we can all use a good laugh getting through the cold and dreary winter months. Senator Thom Tillis (R-NC) has only been in office for a month and already is seeking to compete with some of the other eccentrics looking to make a name for themselves. He may be on the right track if that is his goal

We all know that the Republican Party is known for its opposition to too much regulation, which they claim is a huge impediment to economic growth. We can probably agree that there is too much regulation, but disagreement lies in which ones to reduce or eliminate. I would start with the tax regulations that require endless compliance and paperwork. Perhaps Senator Tillis would agree, but if so, he has been silent.

But Tillis illustrated with an example of what he means by too much regulation. He would no longer mandate that a restaurant post a sign in the restrooms that employees must wash their hands. In its place he would have the establishment post a notice that hand washing is optional, and thereby allow the public to decide if they wanted to eat there. Free markets at work, even though Tillis would be replacing one required sign with another. Can’t make this stuff up.

Then there was the measles controversy. It is comforting to know that Governor/Presidential candidate Chris Christie (R-NJ) had his children vaccinated. I am less comforted though by his first statement that parents should have a choice about this matter. Senator/presidential candidate/Dr. Rand Paul (R-KY) also weighed in with similar sentiments. Both backtracked and “clarified” their positions after an avalanche of criticism from the scientific community. Guess they finally learned about the importance of herd immunity, that vaccinations work and are considered one of the greatest discoveries in history toward improved health.

A little closer to home, Delta CEO Richard Anderson made a pitch to the Georgia General Assembly to tax motorists and air travelers to pay for the transportation improvements that Georgia desperately needs, especially if it has any hope of climbing up from the near bottom of having the worst infrastructure in the country. But Delta has been receiving a sales tax exemption on fuel for years amounting to a huge savings for the company. I am a big fan of Anderson, but his comments don’t even come close to passing the red face test.

To his credit, Rep. Earl Erhart (R-Powder Springs), with whom I share little in common, challenged Anderson’s chutzpah. Erhart had supported the fuel tax waiver during and since Delta’s hard times but thought that it was time to eliminate it. Considering that Delta is once again profitable, which can fairly be attributed to Anderson’s leadership and to a lesser extent, lower fuel prices, it doesn’t seem unreasonable for the company to pay sales tax just like everyone else.

It should also be noted that despite profits and lower fuel costs, Delta has not lowered the price of its airfares. I’m okay with that in a free market system, but I also think that in a free market everyone should play by the same economic rules, that no one should get a break that shifts the tax burden to others. I commend Erhart for confronting this corporate giant on a delicate political issue. He deserves the support of his fellow Republicans, although I haven’t seen any come forward yet.

The American people continue to hear that the voters elected vast majorities of Republicans nationwide in 2014 to change things for the better. That is an envious opportunity, one that truly allows the marketplace of ideas to distill some of the best solutions that they claim to have. If, however, we have too many weeks like this past one, and if the Republicans continue to cast vote number 50 something or other to eliminate Obamacare, I sure hope they come up with something better to replace it. In the meanwhile, let’s hope the party of deregulation doesn’t tear down the signs requiring employees to wash their hands.

This is shaping up to be an unusual presidential campaign. We are at the end of January of the year preceding the first primary election, and not one candidate of either party has announced their intention to run. The explanation can be found by following the money, which all too often explains a lot of things, not usually for the better. In this instance potential candidates are lining up financial support from wealthy benefactors, who in turn will then pour money into their choices through various organizations that cannot collaborate with a campaign once an official announcement to run is made. All the strategic planning will be completed before the announcement, and the campaigns and super-PACS will no longer have any “connection.”

A lot changed with Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission (2010), the Supreme Court decision that overturned settled law banning corporations and unions from spending money in federal elections without limitation. This activist decision by the conservative majority ignored congressional intent and declared that money and speech are part and parcel of the First Amendment despite no language in the amendment to support it.

All this is relevant as we head into 2016. In April, Las Vegas casino billionaire Sheldon Adelson held tryouts for Republican presidential candidates. Some of the most likely contenders met with Adelson one on one to try and secure his blessing and all the money that will flow if successful. This past weekend David and Charles Koch hosted their winter donor retreat at Palm Springs, CA where they committed to spend upwards of $900 million dollars in the presidential race. Some 300 major donors attended this very exclusive retreat, and also in attendance were many of the same big name candidates who met with Adelson. This vast sum of money is more than the Republican National Committee spent in the 2012.

Is anyone so naïve as to think that these tycoons have no agenda other than trying to accomplish what is “best for America?” Adelson strongly opposes internet gambling, and whoever gets his support can be counted on to be a strong voice on Adelson’s behalf. The Koch brothers have any number of financial and business interests. Do you think that their handpicked horse just might carry the Koch water?

Citizens United made it clear that buying access is not a crime as long as there is no quid pro quo. Despite the findings of Congress and a number of state legislatures that had placed limits on money in campaigns because of the inherent corruption, Justice Anthony Kennedy took it upon himself to disagree. According to Kennedy, disclosure of the names of contributors and amounts of money serve as a safeguard against corruption because the people can decide for themselves if there is anything nefarious.

The Citizens United case should be retitled Citizens Divided, because that is exactly what has happened. Those with cash get access. The have-nots get form letters and campaign blather---or ignored. The tax code is the best example of how access gets the special interests the tax breaks that the less fortunate can only dream of. Defenders of this system use the most sophistic and disingenuous arguments to preserve their exalted status to the exclusion of the powerless.

Unless and until we have meaningful campaign finance reform, the ordinary voter will go to the polls to choose the candidates that have already been bought and paid for. All legal of course. And the ones who make the laws are the very ones that are most affected by them. The current Supreme Court will probably lift all caps on campaign financing once a case comes before it. If the average Joe thinks his representatives really care about his concerns, he’s out of touch. We are becoming an increasingly divided nation based on the growing disparity of wealth, income and power. I am not optimistic about our nation’s political future.

Most people have never heard the name Raif Badawi. That’s too bad. The media have covered his plight but probably not with the attention it deserves. Badawi is a Saudi Arabian national. He happens to have the misfortune of living in a country that doesn’t believe in freedom of conscience, which is encapsulated in our First Amendment and which we all too often take for granted.

Badawi, a blogger, created a website that satirized Muslim icons, something that would normally find him with his head removed from his body, the execution method used by ISIS. In this instance the Saudi government showed mercy: He was sentenced to ten years imprisonment and 1,000 lashes. In another act of benevolence the court has allowed the caning to be parceled out in 50 increments over 20 weeks.

Saudi Arabia is one of our closest Middle East allies. They provide us with oil, oppose Iran, have flooded the oil market to depress prices in order to help wreck the Russian economy, and are providing the Egyptian government with lots of cash to help prop it up. It is also the same country that produced the bulk of the 9/11 terrorists. When they generously allowed the U.S. to build air bases after Saddam became a regional threat, our service members were prohibited from practicing their faith unless it happened to be that of the only one permitted. And, of course, they are no friend of Israel. The Saudi government opposes al Qaida and ISIS, two terrorist organizations that seek to overthrow them and perpetrate even more violence.

Despite egregious human rights abuses, I have yet to see one prominent conservative speak out against the Saudi government, against our continued foreign aid, which is mostly in the form of military hardware and training. Yet Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) took the lead in blasting Obama for reestablishing relations with Cuba because of Cuba’s ongoing violations of human rights. To be fair, Senator Bob Menendez (D-NJ), has aligned himself with Rubio on this issue. And Menendez’ voice hasn’t been heard, either, against Saudi Arabia’s numerous human rights violations.

The U.S. State Department has protested on Badawi’s behalf, but it has fallen on deaf ears. Amnesty International, a liberal organization, has also injected itself into this fray. After the Paris shootings by Islamic terrorists and all the criticism from the right that Obama hasn’t done enough to fight these people, the voice of silence from the same people concerning Saudi Arabia is deafening.

This should not be a political issue. In this instance we are not talking about extremist groups that are directly linked to a government. We are talking about the government itself that acts in the extreme by today’s international standards. Crimes against humanity were codified into international law after Nuremburg, and we as a nation should do everything possible to highlight Saudi Arabia’s barbaric laws and justice system. If conservatives who oppose anything with Obama’s fingerprints want to prove themselves credible, perhaps they might consider that human rights isn’t just a Cuban problem. Let freedom ring from all corners of the political spectrum.

It is horrific. After the first 50 lashes, they postponed the next lashing because he wasn't sufficiently healed to survive. So, unless there is intervention, he will be lashed to near death, brought back to enough health, and lashed again and again until the 1000 lashes are completed. Beyond barbaric.

Oliver Halle of east Cobb is a retired FBI agent and has law degrees from The University of North Carolina and New York University. He commanded a Swift Boat in Vietnam, where he earned the Bronze Star with the Combat V for meritorius action. While with the FBI he helped investigate and prosecute members of the Columbo organized crime “family” and later launched the investigation that resulted in the conviction on corruption charges of Atlanta Mayor Bill Campbell.